Collaborating With Parents and Communities
Websites, Videos, Other Research


PTO Today - Help Build Student Achievement--
This article highlights several events that schools can incorporate to encourage parental involvement.Parent involvement is much more than attending dinners and PTO meetings. Parents need to be encouraged to be involved by connecting school to everyday life. Many times it can be as simple as inviting translators to make sure that all parents are included. This website has links to help with Back2school nights,fostering reading, math and science skills.
entered by Peggy Wellmon 2/21/09


The Harvard Family Research Project
http://www.hfrp.org/family-involvement/overview
The Harvard Family Research Project, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is committed to “meeting the growing demand for information on the effective ways to support family involvement in children’s learning and development.” The goals of the Harvard Family Research Project are to share research on the latest information of family involvement, produce research based publications for use by schools and families, encourage the exchange of ideas among members of the Family Involvement Network of Educators (FINE), and provide information on training tools, materials and preservice and teacher training classes in the
FINE newsletters. The website provides a forum for educators, families, and communities to share information and test new innovations in family involvement.

Click here to read or download the Parent-Teacher Conference Tip Sheets for Principals, Teachers, and Parents.
Submitted by Lisa Hatfield, 3/1/09


Teacher Vision: Parent-Teacher Collaboration
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/education-and-parents/resource/3730.html
Teacher Vision has many great resources for parents and teachers alone, although, among then I found a great link that is just for parent-teacher collaboration. This website focuses on any and most everything that a teacher would encounter with a parent. There are getting to know your student forms, that allow the parents to fill in the information for teachers, there are family night ideas for teachers, there is a "lighten your back pack load" printable and many more great ideas and printables! I found a lot of great ideas throughout this website, I was very impressed. One disadvantage to this website it that you have to pay for a years subscription, but with that said you are allowed three free articles!
Submitted by: Casey Davis
March 11,2009


Teacher-Parent Collaboration
http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/ACERPress_Teacher-Parent_SMP.pdf
This is a great article about the effectiveness of parent-teacher collaborations. This article states a lot of great ideas that relate to parent-teacher involvement. The article talks about how students will feel very comfortable when people from two different sides of their life come together to make the best education possible for them. This article talks about all different types of parent-teacher collaborations, like parent driven models and teacher driven models. The article also discusses parents and teacher, values, beliefs, and aspirations. This is a very lengthy article, but there is a lot of great information throughout it!
Submitted by: Casey Davis
March 11, 2009


Parent Involvement in Schools.
http://www.education-world.com/a_special/parent_involvement.shtml
This is part of the EducationWorld.com site – a site which offers a multitude of information about everything involved with education. This particular page is basically a listing of over 40 different links to other pages on the EducationWorld.com site that are aimed towards increasing positive parent involvement in the schools with descriptions of each. Links vary from how to plan a school math night to tips for welcoming parent volunteers into your classroom. There are a couple of really cute links that talk about “talk your family to school week” and having the parents come and walk in their kids “sneakers” for a day. Truly a great resource!
Submitted by Leslie Johnson on 3/15/2009.


Getting Parents Involved in Schools.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/25979
This is a 2005 article by The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement that cites research showing that students’ behavior, attendance, and achievement can all be improved by parental involvement. It asks, and answers, the questions:
1. What is successful parental involvement?
2. What are the barriers to successful parental involvement?
and
3. How do schools foster successful parental involvement?
One key element seems to be the personalization of the teacher-parent-school involvement. Use the involvement to address a specific need in the community or school. One size does not fit all and what works great in one school may be a flop in another. Know your audience!
Submitted by Leslie Johnson on 3/15/2009


Helping Parents Understand Student Assessment
Teacher Tube Video
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=702300c576fcd56a9add&page=4&viewtype=&category=

The "Helping Parents Understand Student Assessment" video on Teachertube discusses the state resources that are available to inform parents on ways they can positviely get involved in their student's assessments and school acheivement. Although based in Kansas, many of the assessment information and tips are applicable to NC schools. In conjunction with this teacher tube video, I have included the below link to the NC Public School website's Parent Empowerment page. This website includes information for parents as well as traning tools for educators to inform parents on many ways their involvement can make a positive impact on their child's school success!

NC Public Schools - Parent Empowerment
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/racg/parentempowerment/
Submitted by Lisa Hatfield on 3/27/09


Schools as Learning Communities
By: Joyce L. Epstein and Karen Clark Salinas
This article focuses on action plans that use a research-based framework that incorporate six types of involvement – parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community. School learning communities must welcome all diversity, including immigrants and refugees. The article has several examples of schools and different ideas that can be incorporated to increase parental involvement as well as community involvement. These ideas include activities to help increase students’ reading, writing, math, and goal setting ideas.
http://pdonline.ascd.org/pd_online/success_di/el200405_epstein.html
submitted by Peggy Wellmon


Parents - Partners in Education - Video
From the American Association of School Administrators and the National Film Institute
This is a 25-minutes video available from the Appalachian library. The video talks about different ways that families can take an active role in the education of their children. Special emphasis is placed on the need for all educators involved - teachers, specialists, and principals - to work with the families. Discussion also revolves around how parents can supplement their children's education outside of the classroom.
submitted by Leslie Johnson